Mr. Smithfield - Louise Bay Page 0,22
leaking from her mouth or ears. She hasn’t been sick and doesn’t feel sick. She’s alert. Lucid. No headache. No bruising. She has none of the symptoms of a severe concussion apart from a lump on her head and a brief moment of unconsciousness. But as I said, we’ll keep her under observation for the next few hours and then you can take her home.”
“Please may I have snacks?” Bethany asked.
“I’ll get someone to bring you something,” the doctor said.
“She can eat and drink as normal?” I asked.
“Absolutely. Like I said, if she’d inhaled the water when she went into the pool, it might be a different story.” The doctor swept out and I turned to Autumn.
“You saved her,” I said.
“I just knew I could get to her first.”
This woman beside me wasn’t just beautiful. And kind. And funny. She’d saved my daughter. I would never be as grateful to anyone else, for anything else, for as long as I lived. “You saved her,” I said again. And by saving Bethany, she’d saved me.
Ten
Autumn
I tried to decide between the racing car and the dog. It was a tough decision. Gabriel had already picked out the top hat, which was just perfect for the surly British gentleman he was. I liked the dog and all, but it would have definitely been Hollie’s first choice. I needed something new. “Okay, I’m going for the car,” I said.
“Fine,” Gabriel said from where he was sitting opposite from me. He was studiously tidying his piles of money, which he’d lined up in front of him on the sturdy oak dining table in the kitchen. “At least you didn’t take long to make that decision,” he grumbled.
I laughed. I wasn’t used to sarcasm from Gabriel. “Oh look, the Strand,” I said, spotting the familiar name on the board. “That’s where you work, right?”
“Near there, yes.”
“I have to try to buy it. Then you can work for me and I’ll reduce your working hours.” I grinned at him and he just shook his head like I was the most irritating person he knew. I was going to win him over and relax him if it killed me, and then I was going to talk to him about Bethany.
“Is there a Smithfield?” People referred to the area where Gabriel lived as lots of different areas. Smithfield. Farringdon. Clerkenwell. But Gabriel always used Smithfield, so now I did too.
“No. We’re not cool enough over this side of town.”
“It’s super cool around here,” I replied. “Especially when we’re actually allowed out,” I said, dropping a hint as subtle as a knee in the balls.
“Do we have to do this?” he asked, ignoring my hint the size of Montana. “I hate Monopoly.”
“Yes, we absolutely have to do this.” It wasn’t my favorite game, but I needed common ground and a way of stopping Gabriel from just stalking off into his private, locked lair, which he had been doing more than usual in the last few days. Anyway, I was used to the New Jersey version of the game. It would be kinda fun to play with the London street names. “Think of it as you giving me a tour around your city.”
“There are plenty of tour buses that have stops a hundred meters away. You could see the real thing.”
I sighed. “It’s warmer to do it like this.”
Gabriel hadn’t been himself since Bethany’s accident. He’d insisted on working from home and she and I hadn’t been allowed to leave the house so Gabriel could check on her regularly. It had been five days. Work seemed to be stressing him out and I knew he’d cancelled drinks with Dexter and his other friends tonight. Enough was enough. I was going to talk to him about getting things back to normal. But I had to get him in the room long enough to be able to bring it up. If Bethany wasn’t around, as soon as I walked into a room, he walked out. Mainly through that locked door to who-the-hell-knew. Tonight I’d insisted on taking him on in a game of Monopoly, and somewhere during the game I was going to tell him he needed to back off. Go back to business as usual or Bethany was going to become a timid little mouse. I also wanted to ask him why he was avoiding me, but that might take a bottle of wine and a win at Monopoly for me to get the courage up. Did he blame me for what